Turning table on NSA, US diplomats' phone call is bugged, leaked to YouTube

A bugged phone conversation in which two senior US officials traded offensive remarks about the European Union has ignited a diplomatic free-for-all and raised questions about the ability of the US to protect its sensitive communications from the spy apparatuses of Russia and other countries.

US Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Ukraine, clearly thought they were speaking on a secure line when discussing the political unrest in Ukraine and how the US government should help resolve the crisis. At one point during the January 25 call, Nuland colorfully rejected recent overtures from European Union leaders by telling her colleague: "Fuck the EU."

The four-minute call was posted to YouTube on Thursday. The voice quality is strikingly clear, suggesting the recording was made by a well-positioned source. Among the first people to tweet the link was an aide to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. US State Department officials quickly seized on the tweet as proof that the Russian government was involved in the eavesdropping, calling the episode a "new low in Russian tradecraft." The Russian government has denied any involvement.

The leak has strained other diplomatic relations, with Chancellor Angela Merkel saying Nuland's comment was "absolutely unacceptable." Nuland has since apologized for the remark.

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Meanwhile, it’s 1984 in Sochi

The accusations that Russia's government is behind the call recording intensifies concerns already voiced about the privacy of people attending the Winter Olympics in Sochi. A top Russian official raised the specter of a particularly Orwellian state in comments claiming that Western visitors are intentionally trying to sabotage the success of the event. In an article published Thursday by The Wall Street Journal, Dmitry Kozak, the deputy prime minister responsible for the Olympic preparations, said, "We have surveillance video from the hotels that shows people turn on the shower, direct the nozzle at the wall, and then leave the room for the whole day." The WSJ reporter was whisked away before he could ask follow-up questions.

Beyond the diplomatic fallout of the recording and concerns about intrusive spying by world governments, the leaked call raises important national security considerations. First, didn't the diplomats use encrypted phones to discuss such a politically sensitive topic, and if not, why? Alternatively, were the rooms of the US officials bugged, or are there other ways spies are able to bypass security measures the officials are using? In either case, the interception and public airing of the discussion represents a major security operations failure on the part of the US government.

It's also interesting to note that Merkel, who in the past has bitterly complained about NSA surveillance of her cellphone calls, hasn't been reported to condemn this most recent round of eavesdropping. The YouTube recording may be a reminder that the US and UK aren't the only countries with sophisticated and highly intrusive surveillance apparatuses.

Then again, there's no way to rule out the possibility that the call was recorded and leaked by people associated with the US. After all, headlines proclaiming that the tables have been turned on US diplomats could be a tactical ploy by people who are still smarting from the endless stream of revelations about National Security Agency surveillance.